The Music Box
by Bishou no Marina
Summary: (*Companion to A Perfect World*) As Keeper of the Music Box, Logan holds the fate of dormant Heroes like himself in his hands. His own awakening, should he choose it, will start a chain reaction across the land; once begun, it cannot be stopped. As a King, he was a failure. But his sister's faith in him remains, and with it, this charge: to rebuild a world, one life at a time.


_Generally, novellas aren't separated into chapters. Though they are usually shorter than novels, novellas are novellas because of the scope of their content rather than their length. My understanding is that they tend to focus on a single character and his or her primary conflict, with few (if any) sub-plots and little to no changes in perspective. Each section of __this__ novella will be measured by its mood and speed—in essence, by its _tempo, _the way a composer might mark a musical piece. Therefore, based on the tempo named, you can mark the rising and falling of the action of the piece as it is performed for you here. Please enjoy _The Music Box_, Logan's side of the story, while reading about his sister in _A Perfect World_. _

* * *

_Grave (slowly, solemnly)_

* * *

If anyone in Driftwood ever noticed the man who lived alone on the edge of the bay, they never mentioned it. Driftwood was a new settlement, and it had been founded by vagabonds, refugees, criminals, gypsies—founded, in short, by people who believed in new beginnings. Driftwood was a place to disappear. There was more than enough space for everyone, and although a little gold had begun to trickle in from Outside, it wasn't yet enough to cause the Outside to intrude on Driftwood's _laissez-faire _way of life…and that was precisely how everyone preferred it. No one, as a rule, asked many questions when a man refused to join in the nightly bonfire parties or kept his windows closed even when the weather was fine. Freedom of choice was the only real law the community upheld. In Driftwood, people did not pry.

That suited ex-King Logan of Albion very well. Driftwood suited him well, and so did his caravan by the water.

The irony of this was not lost on him. A year ago, this cluster of islands had belonged to a particularly vicious tribe of Hobbes. Its first human settlers had begged his rebel sister for help after being evicted from their homes by Reaver, then a brutally efficient captain of industry with a reach as long and mysterious as his lifespan. They had not bothered to bring their problem to their King, because they knew, as Logan knew, that Reaver had acted perfectly within his rights, owning half of Millfields as he did. They had turned to Rose, instead…Rose, a runaway princess with a few supporters but no army at her back, no political clout, no permanent home of her own, even. And what had Rose done?

Logan closed his fingers over a small white blossom, then opened them. The flower sprang brightly back to its proper shape at once. There was no crushing it. Not this kind of rose.

Rose had found _the third alternative_, as she always did. She had been in no position to overthrow him yet, and she had no leverage against Reaver, either. But she had had a sword, a gun, and her Will, and that had been enough. The ground upon which he now sat had run red with Hobbe blood, and she had given it all to the displaced gypsies and gone her way without asking for a thing in return. She had even come back now and then to check on them, eventually braving the balverine-infested Silverpines—why anyone would choose to live in _there_, Logan could not fathom—in order to bring them the master carpenter they needed in order to engineer a thriving community. It was an alternative he would never have thought of, himself, and now it was his home.

Logan unfolded his sister's last letter and smoothed it over his desk. He had done this so many times now that the parchment lay flat and limp. He stared hard at the single word she had given him, the answer to his pleas for her to turn her back on him for the sake of the people, for the sake of a peaceful oblivion in which he might lose himself, at last.

_Never_.

This was one of the only things on which Rose's mind was absolutely immovable. There was no alternative, there.

_Never_.

The black, forbidding word became a thing of alarming beauty when she used it. It was so much more than ink on paper. It held hope, forgiveness, longing, acceptance, love… It was a promise. It held a future. All he had to do…was take it.

_This is my Albion._

The thought came to him like a whisper. For a moment, Logan froze, minute hairs standing up on the back of his neck, his nostrils flaring as if to catch the scent of a predator's spoor. A shadow fell over his mind. He did not want to think about this. He did not make a habit of revisiting closed matters, and he had no love for ghosts. But there it was—one of many specters he had never been able to exorcise: _My Albion. _And just at the moment, it demanded his attention, willing or not.

"Damn you, Rose…"

Logan stood abruptly and walked out of his caravan in long, swift strides, away from the undying rose, away from _never_, and the dangerous thoughts those things aroused in his mind. The sun was rising, and most of the inhabitants of Driftwood—of all of Albion, for that matter—had only just begun to sleep off the "White Night" (so the royal wedding had been dubbed, by someone who thought himself exceedingly clever). Like his sister, Logan did not indulge in alcohol, and today the dawn belonged to him alone. In fact, it seemed to him that its delicate sweeping pastels were lovelier than usual, as though for his special pleasure. Again came the treacherous thought: _My Albion… _He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, wishing, as he often had even as a young boy, that he could _stop thinking_, even for a moment. A moment of peace…was it so much to ask for, after all he had done?

Albion had been placed in his arms like a squalling newborn, a fresh kingdom still mourning its dead mother. In many ways, it _was_ an infant country. Thirty-odd years had tamed the land well enough, but the only people who had been raised to be proper _subjects_ were still children, themselves. The rest, for the most part, had been loyal to him out of gratitude and respect for his mother far more than any actual reverence for his station. There had _been_ no royalty in Albion since the days of the Old Kingdom. It was a foreign concept, and Logan had been saddled with the burden of educating a nation in political matters he only vaguely understood, himself.

But Logan was, if nothing else, a man of iron resolve. He had managed, and the secret of his success, short-lived though it was, was quite simple. Logan loved Albion. He had risen to become its guardian without reservations, without any regard for his own personal desires—none had ever really _occurred_ to him, now that he thought on it, beginning to pace toward the sand. His mother had given everything to protect Albion. He had grown up knowing this, and he had known no other way to live. When Queen Sparrow died, his father's joy in life had gone out like a snuffed candle. Logan had watched despair and loneliness take small bites of Prince Liam for the remainder of his life—the Slow Death, he often called it in the darker recesses of his mind—and he came to understand that to attach oneself to a _person_ was inevitably ruinous. People died. It was a fact of life. One could not, therefore, make a person the center of one's life. But life demanded a purpose, nevertheless, and something had to fill the void. Something that would not—_could_ not—die.

_My Albion._

The concept which would one day blacken and grow like a cancer inside him had been born in his heart as innocently as any decent feeling. He had chosen to devote his life to the care and keeping of Albion, because while its people could die and would die, Albion herself, as a whole, had every right and reason to endure long after Logan was dust in the ground.

He knelt and scooped up a handful of sand, brushing the precious grains between his fingers. They glittered like diamonds in the early morning light. _I would have died a thousand times to keep the Darkness from touching you._ He often wished that he had. A tyrant he had certainly been, but what the history books would likely fail to point out was that he had expected no more of his people than he had of himself. If his blood could have spared Albion, he would have spilled it with his own hand without a thought. It would have been so much easier than what duty _had_ demanded of him.

Logan had always believed that, as the son of a Queen, he had been born to live for something greater than himself. Now a new Queen was asking him to live for himself, and he almost hated her for it. He did not even know where to _begin_ living for himself. He did not know what he wanted, who he was, or what purpose he could possibly serve now that he was no longer _King_ Logan but simply Logan.

_This is my Albion_, he thought, standing once more, _and its cities will never bow to my law. Its mountains will not bend to my will. Its people will not do as I say. Its future will not be as I decree. _

There had to be another way. He needed a third alternative.

_Where is your resolve, now? _he asked himself bitterly. In another place, in another life, he had stood before his country in raised relief and nearly felt the ground tremble beneath his feet. _I have seen what must be done, and nothing will stand in my way, _he had said then, never suspecting that his task had already been given to another, that he was redundant and useless because he was not a Hero. He had meant all that he had said, but he had never gotten the chance to prove his devotion before his Albion had been taken from him.

"But I would have…"

_You can_, his sister's voice seemed to whisper in his head. He could almost hear the smile in her voice, and he was suddenly reminded of what she had told him the day she had given him the Music Box: _There is so much more to you than you know, Logan. Albion is alive. It is your Albion, as long as you wish it to be. No one can take that from you. Not even me._

And there it was. His third alternative.

"I will be greater," he said quietly. Rose was not there, not truly, but his vow was no less binding. "And I will be stronger, no matter what sacrifices I must make."

The Music Box had held death for his aunt, disaster for his mother, and pain for his sister. What it held for him, he still did not know. Rose believed that it would unlock his Heroic potential, awakening his dormant blood. Logan questioned the wisdom in this, given his monstrous actions in the past, but his sister's faith in him was unshakable. He frowned. The girl was in the habit of loving monsters; she had married _Reaver_, of all men.

_Enough._

She trusted him, and if he was truly to live, he knew would have to do more than simply accept whatever might enter his life—he would have to rise to meet it. He was decided.

_This is my Albion, _he told himself firmly, gazing out over the water, where the Tattered Spire rose like a black spike in the distance. It sent a chill of foreboding down his spine. _And I will see myself destroyed before I surrender it. _


End file.
